National Endowment for the Arts 
 
 READER'S GUIDE 
 
 Museum, dLibrary 
 
 ERNEST HEMINGWAY'S 
 
 A Farewell 
 to Arms 
 

 ring so mucn 
 ge to this world the 
 s to kill them to 
 n, so of course 
 The world 
 aks every one and 
 afterward many are strong 
 at the broken places." 
 
 —ERNEST HEMINGWAY 
 from A Farewell to Arms 
 
Preface 
 
 Ernest Hemingway is the notorious tough guy of modern American letters, 
 but it would be hard to find a more tender and rapturous love story than 
 A Farewell to Arms. It would also be hard to find a more harrowing American 
 novel about World War I. Hemingway masterfully interweaves these 
 dual narratives of love and war, joy and terror, and — ultimately — liberation 
 and death. 
 
 It will surprise no one that a book so vivid and deeply felt originated in the 
 author's own life. Hemingway served as an ambulance driver for the Italian 
 army in World War I. Severely wounded, he recuperated in a Red Cross 
 hospital in Milan where he fell in love with one of his nurses.This 
 relationship proved the model for Frederic and Catherine's tragic romance 
 in A Farewell to Arms. 
 
 The Big Read is an initiative of the National Endowment for the Arts 
 designed to revitalize the role of literary reading in American popular culture. 
 Reading at Risk: A Survey of Literary Reading in America, a 2004 NEA report, 
 identified a critical decline in reading for pleasure among American adults. 
 The Big Read aims to address this issue directly by providing citizens with the 
 opportunity to read and discuss a single book within their communities. 
 
 A great book combines enlightenment with enchantment It awakens our 
 imagination and enlarges our humanity. It can even offer harrowing insights 
 that somehow console and comfort us. Whether you're a regular reader 
 already or a nonreader making up for lost time, thank you for joining 
 the Big Read. 
 
 g^^tf'o- 
 
 Dana Gioia 
 
 Chairman, National Endowment for the Arts 
 
 Ernest Hemingway 
 in Paris, 1 928 
 
&$3 " 
 
 *£- 
 
 X<r 
 
 t«!Ml* T 
 
 1 was always embarrassed by the words 
 sacred, glorious, and sacrifice and the 
 expression in vain. We had heard them, 
 sometimes standing in the rain almost 
 out of earshot, so that only the shouted 
 words came through, and had read 
 them, on proclamations that were 
 slapped up by billposters over other 
 proclamations, now for a long time, 
 and I had seen nothing sacred, and 
 the things that were glorious had no 
 glory and the sacrifices were like the 
 stockyards at Chicago if nothing was 
 done with the meat except to bury 
 it.... Abstract words such as glory, honor, 
 courage, or hallow were obscene beside 
 the concrete names of villages, the 
 numbers of roads, the names of rivers, 
 the numbers of regiments and the 
 dates. " 
 
 — from A Farewell to Arms 
 
 2 THE BIG READ • National Endowment for the Arts 
 
Introduction to the Novel 
 
 Ernest Hemingways third novel 
 A Farewell to Arms (1929) was 
 crafted from his earliest experience 
 with war. As a teenager just out 
 of high school, Hemingway 
 volunteered to fight in the First 
 World War, but was rejected because 
 of poor eyesight. Instead, he drove a 
 Red Cross ambulance on the Italian 
 front, where he was wounded in 
 1918 by a mortar shell. While 
 recovering in a hospital, Hemingway 
 fell in love with Agnes von 
 Kurowsky, a nurse seven years his 
 senior. She did not reciprocate his 
 passion, however, and rejected his 
 marriage proposal five months after 
 their first meeting. 
 
 These events were thinly 
 fictionalized by Hemingway a 
 decade later into A Farewell to 
 Arms, with its tragic love story 
 between an American ambulance 
 driver and an English nurse. 
 Lieutenant Frederic Henry meets 
 Catherine Barkley in a small town 
 near the Italian Alps. Though 
 Catherine still mourns the death of 
 her fiance, killed in the war, she 
 encourages Frederic to pursue her. 
 Badly wounded at the front, 
 Frederic finds himself bedridden in 
 a Milan hospital, but Catherine 
 arrives to look after him. It is here 
 that their initial romance deepens 
 into love. While Frederic recovers 
 
 from surgery and prepares to return 
 to action, Catherine discovers that 
 she is pregnant — a surprise that 
 delights and frightens them both. 
 Though the couple has escaped the 
 war, there are dangers that cannot be 
 anticipated or avoided. The final 
 chapter is one of the most famous, 
 and heartbreaking, conclusions in 
 modern literature. 
 
 This rather simple plot does not 
 explain the appeal of A Farewell to 
 Arms. It is Hemingway's writing 
 style that transforms the story into a 
 great tragedy. The critic Malcolm 
 Cowley considered it "one of the 
 few great war stories in American 
 literature; only The Red Badge of 
 Courage and a few short pieces by 
 Ambrose Bierce can be compared 
 with it." By omitting most adjectives 
 and using short, rhythmic sentences, 
 Hemingway tried to give the reader 
 a sense of immediacy, of actually 
 witnessing the events in his writing. 
 He once described his method this 
 way: "I always try to write on the 
 principle of the iceberg. There is 
 seven-eighths of it under water for 
 every part that shows. Anything you 
 know you can eliminate and it only 
 strengthens your iceberg." His 
 spare prose and laconic dialogue 
 made him the most widely imitated 
 American writer of the 20th 
 century. 
 
 National Endowment for the Arts • THE BIG READ 3 
 
Ernest Hemingway (1899-1961) 
 
 Ernest Hemingway may have been 
 the most famous novelist in the 
 English language during his lifetime. 
 Idolized by readers, envied by fellow 
 writers, and adored by many for the 
 romantic lifestyle that he created for 
 himself, Hemingway the writer must 
 always be distinguished from 
 Hemingway the public figure. The 
 first was a sensitive and exacting 
 artist; the second was a larger-than- 
 life image maintained for tabloid 
 consumption. As early as 1929, 
 Dorothy Parker was moved to 
 remark: "Probably of no other living 
 man has so much tripe been penned 
 or spoken." 
 
 The adulation that Hemingway 
 inspired is not difficult to explain. 
 By turns tough and tender, he lived 
 a life of exuberant masculinity — 
 
 which included hunting for big 
 game in Africa, for Nazi submarines 
 in his fishing boat off Key West, or 
 for the best bar in Paris. He 
 celebrated bullfighting, boxing, 
 hunting, and even warfare as manly 
 pursuits worthy of respect. His years 
 were rife with adventurous accident, 
 including an anthrax infection while 
 on honeymoon in France, and two 
 successive plane crashes on safari. 
 Second-degree burns resulting from 
 a bushfire accident prevented him 
 from traveling to Sweden to accept 
 the Nobel Prize. He won the Silver 
 Medal of Military Honor in the 
 First World War and the Bronze Star 
 Medal in the Second. A leader of the 
 so-called "Lost Generation" and a 
 Modernist, Hemingways closest 
 
 Agnes von Kurowsky 
 
 THE LIFE ANDTIMES OF ERNEST HEMINGWAY 
 
 Ernest Miller 
 Hemingway is born on 
 July 21, 1899, in Oak 
 Park, Illinois. 
 
 Hemingway, 
 I9I7 
 
 1910s 
 
 Woodrow Wilson 
 elected President, 1912. 
 
 World War I begins in 
 1914, ends in 1918. 
 
 Hemingway serves as 
 an ambulance driver in 
 1918; he is wounded in 
 July. 
 
 1920s 
 
 The Prohibition 
 Amendment goes into 
 effect in January 1920. 
 
 Hemingway marries 
 Hadley Richardson and 
 moves to Paris, 1921. 
 
 James Joyce's Ulysses 
 published in Paris, 1922. 
 
 A Farewell to Arms 
 published; Hemingway's 
 father commits suicide 
 in 1929. 
 
 1930s 
 
 Hemingway's two 
 memoirs, Death in the 
 Afternoon and Green 
 Hills of Africa, published, 
 1932 and 1935. 
 
 Adolf Hitler becomes 
 Chancellor of Germany, 
 1933. 
 
 Hemingway travels as a 
 war correspondent to 
 the Spanish Civil War, 
 1937-38. 
 
 4 THE BIG READ • National Endowment for the Arts 
 
friendships included literary giants 
 Ezra Pound, Gertrude Stein, and 
 James Joyce. He was an intellectual 
 and a celebrity, and one of the few 
 Americans to find both roles 
 congenial. He married four times 
 and lived to see 18 of his works 
 published. He died a millionaire, an 
 intimate friend of movie stars such 
 as Gary Cooper, and a winner of 
 both the Pulitzer and Nobel Prizes. 
 In many ways, his career was the 
 stuff of legends. 
 
 Such success did not, however, 
 alleviate his personal struggles. For 
 a man so publicly celebrated and 
 revered, he could be curiously 
 
 "I could remember Catherine but 
 I knew I would get crazy if I 
 thought about her when I was not 
 sure yet I would see her, so I 
 would not think about her, only 
 about her a little, only about her 
 with the car going slowly and 
 clickingly, and some light through 
 the canvas and my lying with 
 Catherine on the floor of the car" 
 — from A Farewell to Arms 
 
 reticent — he wanted no biography 
 written about his life, and he left a 
 will that blocked any publication of 
 his letters. His later years were 
 marked by severe depression, for 
 which he underwent electro- 
 convulsive therapy. Suffering from 
 acute paranoia, he believed for a 
 time that federal agents were after 
 him. Years of alcoholism and organ 
 damage wreaked havoc on his body; 
 digestive complications, high blood 
 pressure, and failing eyesight 
 troubled him constantly. Ernest 
 Hemingway eventually committed 
 suicide in 1961, following the path 
 of his father and two siblings. 
 
 The first inexpensive 
 paperback appears; For 
 Whom the Bell Tolls 
 published,"! 940. 
 
 Japanese forces bomb 
 Pearl Harbor in 1941; 
 America enters World 
 War II. 
 
 Hemingway travels with 
 American troops as a 
 correspondent. 
 
 The Old Man and the 
 Sea published, 1952. 
 
 LIFE 
 
 Hemingway awarded 
 the Nobel Prize for 
 Literature in 1954. 
 
 Gen. Charles de Gaulle 
 becomes French 
 premier, 1957, and 
 remains in power until 
 1969. 
 
 Cover of LIFE magazine, 
 1 952, photo taken by 
 Alfred Eisenstaedt 
 
 1960s 
 
 John F. Kennedy elected 
 President, 1960. 
 
 US breaks diplomatic 
 relations with Cuba, 
 1961. Hemingway 
 commits suicide in 
 Ketchum, Idaho, on 
 July 2, 1961. 
 
 A Moveable Feast 
 edited by Hemingway's 
 fourth wife and 
 published, 1964. 
 
 National Endowment for the Arts • THE BIG READ 5 
 
Hemingway and World War I 
 
 When the United States declared 
 war on Germany and entered World 
 War I in April of 1917, the fighting 
 in Europe had been going on for 
 three years. America joined the 
 Allies, led by France, England, 
 Russia, and Italy, who had been 
 fighting Germany, Austria-Hungary, 
 and the Ottoman Empire (Turkey). 
 Antiquated*19th-century batdefield 
 tactics applied to the innovations of 
 modern warfare led to a 
 monumental loss of life. At the 
 Battle of the Somme in July 1916, 
 British forces launched a relendess 
 barrage of ordnance on German 
 trenches that lasted six days. British 
 
 A soldier sits in the Italian war 
 ruins and reads a letter, 1916. 
 
 "In stories about the war I try to 
 show all the different sides of it, 
 taking it slowly and honestly and 
 examining it from many ways. So 
 never think one story represents 
 my viewpoint because it is much 
 too complicated for that." 
 
 —ERNEST HEMINGWAY 
 
 to Russian critic Ivan Kashkin, 1939 
 
 soldiers were quickly killed by 
 machine gun and rifle fire. By the 
 time the batde ended, Britain had 
 suffered 400,000 casualties; the 
 French 200,000; and 450,000 
 Germans also lay dead in what was 
 one of the bloodiest battles ever. 
 
 By 1917, however, such atrocities 
 had not touched America. Heeding 
 
 6 THE BIG READ • National Endowment for the Arts 
 
President Wilson's admonition to 
 "make the world safe for 
 Democracy," young American boys 
 enlisted in droves. While the public 
 could "Beat Back the Hun with 
 Liberty Bonds," these young men 
 saw a chance to be a part of 
 history — the "War to End All Wars." 
 
 Ernest Hemingway was determined 
 to be part of the action, but an eye 
 defect kept him out of the main 
 branches of the military. 
 Hemingway was undaunted. In 
 April of 1918, he applied to the Red 
 Cross to drive ambulances in Italy 
 and was accepted. He passed his 
 physical exam and was fitted for a 
 uniform that gave him the honorary 
 rank of 1st Lieutenant. 
 
 Hemingway arrived in Milan in early 
 June and was stationed at Schio in 
 the Dolomite hills northwest of 
 Venice. He saw little action. 
 Frustrated, and with a desire to be 
 closer to the front, Hemingway 
 requested transfer to the Red Cross's 
 "rolling canteen" service, which 
 operated along the more contested 
 Piave River. 
 
 He had only been in Italy for about 
 two weeks when he was nearly killed 
 just after midnight on July 12, 1918, 
 while distributing chocolate and 
 
 A German locc 
 damaged by Frenc 
 
 terested in 
 
 m 
 
 World War I, you might 
 also enjoy reading: 
 
 Three Soldiers 
 
 by John Dos Passos (1921) 
 
 The Enormous Room 
 
 by E. E. Cummings (1922) 
 
 All Quiet on the Western Front 
 by Erich Maria Remarque (1929) 
 
 Good-Bye to All That 
 by Robert Graves (1929) 
 
 cigarettes. The fragments of an 
 Austrian trench mortar shell (called 
 a Minenwerfer) ripped into 
 Hemingways legs and killed several 
 men around him. Despite his own 
 wounds, he heaved one injured man 
 into a fireman's carry and began to 
 move him back towards the 
 command post. A machine gun 
 then ripped open Hemingway's right 
 knee. The two men collapsed but 
 somehow made it to safety. For this 
 feat, Hemingway would later be 
 awarded the Italian Croce di 
 Guerra — the silver medal for valor. 
 
 National Endowment for the Arts 'THE BIG READ 7 
 
\ 
 
 ambulance driver during the First 
 World War, Ernest Hemingways 
 decisive years in Europe started in 
 1921, when he arrived in France 
 with a letter of introduction from 
 e writer Sherwood Anderson. In 
 those postwar years, Paris had 
 become the home of many 
 expatriate writers, including Ezra 
 Pound, James Joyce, E.E. 
 Cummings, Ford Madox Ford, and 
 Gertrude Stein. Hart Crane and 
 F. Scott Fitzgerald were frequent 
 visitors. It was this circle of mostly 
 American writers that Hemingway 
 joined when he arrived; and while 
 "the Lost Generation" was Gertrude 
 Steins phrase, it was Hemingway 
 who immortalized it as the epigraph 
 for his 1926 novel, The Sun Also 
 Rises. The book was so popular that, 
 by 1934, Malcolm Cowley could 
 note, "It was a good novel and 
 became a craze — young men tried 
 to get as imperturbably drunk as the 
 hero, young women of good families 
 took a succession of lovers in the 
 
 8 THE BIG READ ■ National Endowment for tflc Arts 
 
 teft, writers Ford Madox Ford, James Joyce, 
 and Ezra Pound with lawyer and arts patron 
 JohnQuinn,c. 1925. 
 
 same heartbroken fashion as the 
 heroine, they all talked like 
 Hemingway characters and the 
 name was fixed." 
 
 Recendy married and employed as 
 a foreign correspondent for the 
 Toronto Star newspaper, 
 Hemingway spent his days 
 interviewing leaders such as 
 Mussolini, and writing fiction. He 
 soon became Ford's assistant editor at 
 The Transatlantic Review, an 
 important literary magazine. In 
 1923, the American author and 
 publisher Robert McAlmon printed 
 
 •Ivia Beach in front of her bookshop, 1924 
 
Hemingways first book, Three 
 Stories and Ten Poems, in Paris. 
 Hemingway would later complain 
 that all he earned from this book 
 "was the enmity of McAlmon, 
 because it sold out while his own 
 volumes remained in stock." 
 
 Another American, Sylvia Beach, 
 opened a bookshop called 
 Shakespeare & Company in 1919, 
 and it soon became a center of 
 literary life in Paris. The store even 
 loaned its poorer patrons rare books, 
 such as D. H. Lawrences banned 
 Lady Chatterleys Lover. It was shut 
 down in 1941 supposedly because 
 Beach would not allow a German 
 officer to buy the last copy of James 
 Joyces Finnegans Wake; Beach had 
 been the first to print Joyces Ulysses 
 in 1922. 
 
 Why were so many American 
 writers living abroad? Paris was a 
 cheap place after the war, with none 
 of the strictures to be found back 
 home, such as Prohibition. Daring 
 innovators in all the arts lived 
 there — like Picasso, Stravinsky, and 
 Modigliani — and many were 
 neighbors in the cheap districts of 
 Montparnasse. The artistic and 
 intellectual ferment of those years 
 moved Hemingway to write: "If you 
 are lucky enough to have lived in 
 Paris as a young man, then wherever 
 you go for the rest of your life, it 
 stays with you, for Paris is a 
 moveable feast." 
 
 "Every man becomes 
 civilized between the 
 ages of 1 8 and 25. If he 
 does not go through a 
 civilizing experience at 
 that time of his life, he 
 will not become a 
 civilized man.The men 
 who went to war at 1 8 
 missed the civilizing... 
 All you young people 
 who served in the war 
 are a lost generation. 
 You have no respect for 
 anything." 
 
 E STEIN 
 
 If you're interested in 
 the Lost Generation of 
 writers, you might also 
 enjoy reading: 
 
 Tender Ls the Night 
 
 by R Scott Fitzgerald (1934) 
 
 Exiles Return 
 
 by Malcolm Cowley (1934) 
 
 Being Geniuses Together 
 
 by Robert McAlmon (1938) 
 
 A Moveable Feast 
 by Ernest Hemir~ 
 
 Hemingway, 
 1924 
 
 National Endowment for the Arts • THE BIG READ 9 
 
Hemingway and His Other Works 
 
 The works of Ernest Hemingway 
 have a long and varied publication 
 history. Some have disappeared, like 
 the stolen early stories that his first 
 wife mislaid; others are ignored, like 
 his first novel, The Torrents of 
 Spring (1926), and his only play, 
 The Fifth Column (1938). Several 
 novels and dozens of short stories are 
 considered classics — and though 
 Hemingway died in 1961, works 
 bearing his name have appeared as 
 recently as 1999. 
 
 Only 300 copies of Hemingways 
 first book, Three Stories and Ten 
 Poems (1923), were printed in Paris. 
 The short story collection In Our 
 Time (1925) cemented 
 
 Hemingways reputation as one of 
 the finest American writers alive. 
 
 F. Scott Fitzgerald convinced 
 Hemingway that he should dump 
 his current publisher and sign with 
 Scribner, where Maxwell Perkins 
 (who also worked with Fitzgerald 
 and Thomas Wolfe) would serve as 
 his editor. In order to do so, 
 Hemingway needed to write an 
 "unpublishable" book to break his 
 three-book contract. So, he wrote 
 The Torrents of Spring (1926) in 10 
 days; it arrived in the same year as 
 his classic The Sun Also Rises. 
 
 In 1 929, A Farewell to Arms became 
 Hemingways first bestseller, selling 
 1 00,000 copies in twelve months. It 
 
 | THE BIG READ • National Endowment for the Arts 
 
in our time 
 
 Hemingway, 1959 
 
 was adapted for the stage a year later, 
 and has been made into a film twice. 
 The same year that he divorced his 
 first wife, he published more stories 
 in Men Without Women (1927). 
 The bullfighting memoir Death in 
 the Afternoon (1932) was followed by 
 the safari hunting memoir The 
 Green Hills of Africa (1935). 
 
 By now, Hemingway had 
 established a pattern — each 
 mediocre book was followed by a 
 masterpiece. His novel To Have and 
 Have Not (1937) is as neglected 
 today as For Whom the Bell Tolls 
 (1940) is celebrated. Across the 
 River and Into the Trees (1950) had 
 critics calling him a has-been — a 
 charge they had to retract when The 
 Old Man and the Sea (1952) won 
 the Pulitzer Prize. 
 
 After his death, Hemingways 
 unfinished manuscripts continued 
 
 to appear for many years — most 
 notably the Paris memoir A 
 Moveable Feast (1964), and the two 
 novels Islands in the Stream (1970), 
 and The Garden of Eden (1986). 
 His Selected Letters appeared in 
 1981, followed by the Complete 
 Short Stories in 1987; while True at 
 First Light, billed as Hemingway's 
 last posthumous work, was edited 
 by his son Patrick, and released to 
 commemorate his 100th birthday 
 in 1999. 
 
 "The hardest thing in the world is 
 to write straight honest prose on 
 human beings. First you have to 
 know the subject; then you have 
 to know how to write. Both take 
 a lifetime to learn, and anybody 
 is cheating who takes politics as 
 a way out. All the outs are too 
 easy, and the thing itself is too 
 hard to do." 
 
 —ERNEST HEMINGWAY 
 
 National Endowment for the Arts • THE BIG READ 
 
Hemingway at the Movies 
 
 A Farewell to Arms was made into a 
 movie twice: the 1932 adaptation, 
 starring Gary Cooper and Helen 
 Hayes, is generally considered 
 superior to the 1957 extravaganza 
 with Rock Hudson and Jennifer 
 Jones in the lead roles. The latter 
 movie should have been a great 
 success- — directed by the legendary 
 John Huston, it was to be the last 
 film produced by David O. 
 Selznick, who had made Gone with 
 the Wind (1939). However, Selznick 
 replaced Huston with Charles Vidor 
 mid-picture, after the pair clashed 
 over the sentimental direction that 
 Selznick wanted. It was not an 
 
 inspired substitution. With Hudson 
 and Jones overacting in every scene, 
 the film can be hard to watch. 
 
 The 1932 version, directed by Frank 
 Borzage, is better — and half as long. 
 It won an Oscar for Charles Lang's 
 gorgeous black-and-white 
 cinematography. Gary Cooper, who 
 played the lead role both here and in 
 For Whom the Bell Tolls (1943), 
 became for many people the 
 personification of 
 Hemingway's 
 heroes. The scenes 
 in A Farewell to 
 Arms with 
 Cooper and 
 
 I. 
 
 >nal Endowment for the Arts 
 
Helen Hayes are intense (Hayes 
 reportedly fell in love with her co- 
 star on the set), and the film has a 
 stark and brooding energy. The 
 movie is not, however, entirely 
 faithful to the book. Worried that 
 audiences would dislike the grim 
 ending, Paramount Pictures ordered 
 that an alternate, upbeat finale be 
 added. Hemingway was hardly 
 thrilled with the result. 
 
 There are plenty of other 
 Hemingway books to savor on 
 screen. One of the best is Howard 
 Hawks' To Have and Have Not 
 (1944), which sizzles with the 
 chemistry between Humphrey 
 Bogart and Lauren Bacall (who also 
 fell in love on the set). With a 
 screenplay co-written by the great 
 novelist William Faulkner, the film is 
 considered a classic — including some 
 of the most memorable dialogue ever 
 written. The movies plot hardly 
 resembles the book, but then 
 Hemingway supposedly made a bet 
 with Hawks that the director would 
 find the novel impossible to film. 
 
 Another great movie is Robert 
 Siodmak's The Killers (1946), ^film 
 noir starring Burt Lancaster (in his 
 debut) and Ava Gardner. Based on 
 one of Hemingways short stories, 
 The Killers is the tale of a duped ex- 
 
 Humphrey Bogart and Lauren Bacall 
 in To Have and Have Not, 1 944. 
 
 boxer who turns into a crook and 
 then a victim for the sake of a 
 dangerous woman. Nominated for 
 four Academy Awards, the film 
 made Ava Gardner a movie star and 
 a sex symbol almost overnight. 
 Reportedly, this was Hemingways 
 favorite movie made from his work. 
 
 Other Hemingway-inspired films 
 include John Sturges' The Old Man 
 and the Sea (1958) with a grizzled 
 Spencer Tracy as the lonely 
 fisherman. And good luck finding a 
 copy of The Sun Also Rises (1957). 
 Despite its all-star cast with Tyrone 
 Power, Errol Flynn, and Ava 
 Gardner, it has never been released 
 on video or DVD. 
 
 National Endowment for the Arts • THE BIG READ | 3 
 
Discussion Questions 
 
 What do we know of Frederic 
 Henrys and Catherine 
 Barkley's life before the novel 
 begins? As the novel's narrator, 
 why would Frederic choose to 
 tell us so little about their past? 
 
 At the beginning of their 
 romance, Frederic treats his 
 relationship with Catherine 
 like a game. When does he fall 
 in love? Why does it happen? 
 
 What role does religion play in 
 the novel? How does Frederics 
 view of the priest compare to 
 the other officers? 
 
 Why is Catherine afraid of the 
 rain? Why does Frederic fear 
 the night? How do both the 
 rain and the night foreshadow 
 the novels tragic conclusion? 
 
 Even before the retreat at 
 Caporetto, Frederic considers 
 that "abstract words such as 
 glory, honor, courage" are 
 "obscene beside the concrete 
 names of villages." What does 
 he mean by this? 
 
 6. Identify a passage that vividly 
 describes World War I. Does 
 the novel make any assertions 
 about war in general, or World 
 War I in particular? 
 
 7. After his desertion, Frederic 
 says that "anger was washed 
 away in the river along with 
 any obligation." Are his actions 
 justified? 
 
 8. The novel's action begins in 
 the late summer of 1915; it 
 ends in spring 1918. Has 
 Frederic changed during this 
 period of time? Is there any 
 redemption at the end of this 
 tragedy? 
 
 9. Toward the end of the novel, 
 Count Grefh" tells Frederic that 
 love is a religious feeling. Does 
 Henry agree? Why or why not? 
 
 1 0. How would you describe 
 Hemingway's style of writing 
 and his characters' dialogue? 
 
 11. The words 'bravery' and 
 courage' are echoed through 
 the novel. Who is the novel's 
 hero? Who is the most 
 courageous character? 
 
 | 4 THE BIG READ • National Endowment for the Arts 
 
'There are some things which 
 cannot be learned quickly and 
 time, which is all we have, 
 must be paid heavily for their 
 acquiring. They are the very 
 simplest things and because 
 it takes a man's life to know 
 them the little new that each 
 man gets from life is very 
 costly and the only heritage 
 he has to leave." 
 
 — from Death in the Afternoon, 1932 
 
 'I happen to be in a very 
 tough business where 
 there are no alibis. It is 
 good or it is bad and the 
 thousand reasons that 
 interfere with a book being 
 as good as possible are no 
 excuses if it is not." 
 
 —to Mrs. Paul Pfeiffer, 1932 
 
 it wasn't by accident 
 that the Gettysburg 
 address was so short. 
 The laws of prose writing 
 are as immutable as 
 those of flight, of 
 mathematics, of physics." 
 
 — to Maxwell Perkins, 1945 
 
 i believe that basically you 
 write for two people; 
 yourself to try to make it 
 absolutely perfect; or if not 
 that then wonderful.Then 
 you write for who you love 
 whether she can read or 
 write or not and whether 
 she is alive or dead." 
 
 — to Arthur Mizener, 1950 
 
 lal Endowment for the Arts • THE BIG READ | 5 
 
Additional Resources 
 
 Selected Bibliography 
 
 In Our Time (1925; stories) 
 The Sun Also Rises (1926; novel) 
 A Farewell to Arms (1929; novel) 
 Death in the Afternoon (1932; non- 
 fiction) 
 Green Hills of Africa (1935; non- 
 fiction) 
 For Whom the Bell Tolls (1940; 
 
 novel) 
 The Old Man and the Sea (1952; 
 
 novel) 
 A Moveable Feast (1964; non- 
 fiction) 
 Islands in the Stream (1970; novel) 
 
 Other Works about Hemingway 
 and the Lost Generation 
 
 Bruccoli, Matthew J. Fitzgerald 
 and Hemingway: A Dangerous 
 Friendship. New York: Carroll & 
 Graf, 1994. 
 
 Hemingway, Ernest and Carlos 
 Baker, ed. Ernest Hemingway 
 Selected letters: 1917-1961. New 
 York: Scribner, 2003. 
 
 Phillips, Larry W., ed. Ernest 
 Hemingway on Writing. New York: 
 Scribner, 1984. 
 
 Reynolds, Michael. Hemingway: The 
 Paris Years. New York: Norton, 1989. 
 
 "'Hello/ I said. When I saw her I 
 was in love with her. Everything 
 turned over inside of me. She 
 looked toward the door, saw 
 there was no one, then she sat on 
 the side of the bed and leaned 
 over and kissed me. I pulled her 
 down and kissed her and felt her 
 heart beating." 
 
 —ERNEST HEMINGWAY 
 from A Farewell to Arms 
 
 Web sites 
 
 www.herningwaysociety.org 
 
 The Ernest Hemingway Foundation was 
 established in 1 965 by Mary Hemingway, 
 Ernests widow. 
 
 www.herningwaysociety. org/ 
 
 hemingway_review.htm 
 
 The Hemingway Review is a scholarly 
 journal published twice a year by The 
 Hemingway Society and The University 
 of Idaho. 
 
 Ernest Hemingway poses with a water 
 buffalo in Africa, 1953-54. 
 
 | 6 THE BIG READ ■ National Endowment for the Arts 
 
NATIONAL 
 ENDOWMENT 
 FORTHE ARTS 
 
 . .INSTITUTE of „ .. 
 
 MuseumandLibrary 
 
 SERVICES 
 
 &-' 
 
 AH 
 
 MIDWEST 
 
 ^£7£^/A/£7 
 
 The National Endowment for the Arts is a public agency dedicated to supporting 
 excellence in the arts — both new and established — bringing the arts to all Americans, 
 and providing leadership in arts education. Established by Congress in 1965 as an 
 independent agency of the federal government, the Endowment is the nations largest 
 annual Hinder of the arts, bringing great art to all 50 states, including rural areas, inner 
 cities, and military bases. 
 
 The Institute of Museum and Library Services is the primary source of federal support 
 for the nations 122,000 libraries and 17,500 museums. The Institutes mission is to 
 create strong libraries and museums that connect people to information and ideas. 
 The Institute works at the national level and in coordination with state and local 
 organizations to sustain heritage, culture, and knowledge; enhance learning and 
 innovation; and support professional development. 
 
 Arts Midwest connects people throughout the Midwest and the world to meaningful 
 arts opportunities, sharing creativity, knowledge, and understanding across boundaries. 
 One of six non-profit regional arts organizations in the United States, Arts Midwest's 
 history spans more than 25 years. 
 
 Boeing is the world's leading aerospace company and the largest combined 
 manufacturer of commercial jediners and military aircraft. As a leading contractor to 
 the U.S. Department of Defense (DoD), Boeing works together with its DoD 
 customers to provide U.S. Armed Forces and U.S. allies around the world with fully 
 integrated high-performing systems solutions and support. 
 
 Additional support for the Big Read has also been provided by the WK. Kellogg 
 Foundation in partnership with Community Foundations of America. 
 
 Works Cited 
 
 Excerpts reprinted by permission of Scribner, an imprint of Simon & Schuster Adult Publishing Group from A 
 FAREWELL TO ARMS by Ernest Hemingway. Copyright 1929 Charles Scribner's Sons. Copyright renewed © 1957 
 by Ernest Hemingway. 
 
 Cowley, Malcolm. Exiles Return: A Literary Odyssey of the 1920s. 1 934. Rev. ed. New York: Viking, 1951. 
 
 Hemingway, Ernest. A Moveable Feast. 1964. New York Scribner, 2003. 
 
 — . Death in the Afternoon. 1932. New York Scribner, 1996. 
 
 Lynn, Kenneth S. Hemingway. Cambridge, MA Harvard University Press, 1995. 
 
 Phillips, Larry, ed. Ernest Hemingway on Writing. New York Scribner, 1 984. 
 
 Acknowledgments 
 
 David Kipen, NEA Director of Literature 
 
 Writers: Garrick Davis and Erika Koss for the National Endowment for the Arts, with preface by Dana Gioia. We thank 
 
 Professor Ken Panda for his essay, "Hemingway and World War I." 
 Series Editor: Erika Koss for the Nauonal Endowment for the Arts 
 Image Editor: Liz Edgar Hernandez for the National Endowment for the Arts 
 Graphic Design: Fletcher Design/Washington, D.C. 
 
 Image Credits 
 
 Cover Portrait: John Sherffius for the Big Read. Inside Front Cover The John E Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum, Boston, photo by 
 Helen Pierce Breaker (circa 1895-circa 1939). Page 1: Dana Gioia, image by Vance Jacobs. Page 2: Book cover courtesy of University of Delaware 
 Library, Newark, Del., used by permission of Scribner, an imprint of Simon & Schuster Adult Publishing Group; Ernest Hemingway, The John F. 
 Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum, Boston; Background image, Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division. Page 4: Left, The 
 John F Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum, Boston; Agnes von Kurowsky, The John E Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum, Boston. 
 Page 5: top, © Bettmann/CORBIS; Life magazine, Time Life Pictures/Getty Images. Page 6: © Alinari Archives/CORBIS. Page 7: Library of 
 Congress, Prints and Photographs Division. Page 8: top, Time Life Pictures/Getty Images; bottom, © Bettmann/CORBIS. Page 9: top, © Hulton- 
 Deutsch Collection/CORBIS; bottom, The John E Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum, Boston. Pages 10-11: Book covers courtesy of 
 University of Delaware Library, Newark, Del. , used by permission of Scribner, an imprint of Simon &C Schuster Adult Publishing Group. Page 1 1 : 
 © Bettmann/CORBIS. Page 12: © Bettmann/ CORBIS, movie postets Photofest. Page 13: Photofest. Page 15: top, The John E Kennedy 
 Presidential Library and Museum, Boston; bottom, © Hulton-Deutsch Collection/CORBIS. Page 16: The John E Kennedy Presidential Library 
 and Museum, Boston. 
 
 This publication is published by: 
 
 National Endowment for the Arts • 1 100 Pennsylvania Avenue, N.W • Washington, D.C. 20506-0001 
 
 (202) 682-5400 • www.nea.gov 
 
 www.NEABigRead.org 
 
N AT I O N A L 
 ENDOWMENT 
 FOR THE ARTS 
 
 'All good books are alike in that 
 they are truer than if they had 
 really happened and after you are 
 finished reading one you will feel 
 that all that happened to you and 
 afterwards it all belongs to you; 
 the good and the bad, the ecstasy, 
 the remorse and sorrow, the 
 people and the places and how 
 the weather was." 
 
 —ERNEST HEMINGWAY 
 
 The Big Read is an initiative of the National Endowment 
 for the Arts designed to restore reading to the center of 
 American culture. The NEA presents The Big Read in 
 partnership with the Institute of Museum and Library 
 Services and in cooperation with Arts Midwest. The Big 
 Read brings together partners across the country to 
 encourage reading for pleasure and enlightenment. 
 
 A great nation deserves great art. 
 
 %'.. Museum. ndLibrary 
 
 .•■•• SERVICES 
 
 The Big Read for military communities is made possible by 
 
 T£J&A/£Z